A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

The term reference refers to the symbolic relationship between a linguistic expression and a concrete or abstract entity which is represented by the linguistic expression. We call referring expression the linguistic expression which denotes the abstract or concrete entity and discourse referent the entity referred to. For example, a cat called ‘Fufy’ represents the discourse referent. We can refer to this cat using several referring expressions, like the noun phrase ‘the cat’, the proper name ‘Fufy’, or both of them ‘Fufythe cat’. We can also refer to the cat using a pronoun which is contextually related to the cat, as shown in the example below, where the pronoun is highlighted in bold.

        

 

 

         cat ix(dem) beautiful-int ix₃ sleep all_day

         ‘That cat is very beautiful, but s/he sleeps all day.’

 

All these referring expressions relate to the same entity: the cat ‘Fufy’.

         By focusing on noun phrases and pronouns, we can classify them with respect to their deictic or anaphoric uses. An expression is called deictic if it receives its reference from an extra-linguistic context. This is displayed in the sentence below.

 

 

 

         Context: At the post office, someone asks for information indicating a letter.

                                  wh

         ix₃ mail where   

         ‘Where can I mail it (indicating the letter)?’

 

On the contrary, anaphoric expressions pick up a discourse referent from the preceding test or discourse. The example below shows a type of anaphoric expression in LIS, that in this case is a pronoun.

 

 

 

         woman CL(G): ‘woman_move’ ₃CL(V): ‘look_at’₁. ix₃ beautiful-int   

         ‘A woman is walking, and then she suddenly turns to me, she is very beautiful.’

 

However, the distinction between deictic and anaphoric expressions is not always clear-cut, as shown by the sentence below uttered in the given context.

 

 

 

         Context: After a teacher left the classroom, a student signs the following sentence.

         ix₃ homework ₃CL(5): ‘give_a_lot’₁ too_many   

         ‘She gave us too much homework.’

 

No previous mention to the teacher was explicitly done before the use of the pronoun as a referring expression. Moreover, the pronoun is not properly deictic since the teacher was no longer present in the classroom at the time of the utterance.